6.  The applicant was born in 1976 and lives in Panevėžys.
7.  The applicant stated that between 3 January and 4 February 2001, she had been beaten up on five occasions by her live-in partner, J.H.L., a Belgian citizen. She submitted that she had been strangled, pulled by the hair, hit in the face and kicked in the back and in other parts of her body.
8.  The applicant’s injuries were documented by forensic expert examinations, the results of which were as follows:
(i)  report of 5 January 2001 concerning injuries sustained on 3 and 4 January: hypodermic bruising on the left hip and thigh;
(ii)  report of 8 January concerning injuries sustained on 7 January: a scrape on the right cheek and brachium;
(iii)  report of 30 January concerning injuries sustained on 29 January: bruising on the right eye and cheek, the left temple, the shin, and a scrape on the left shin;
(iv)  report of 7 February concerning injuries sustained on 4 February: hypodermic bruising on the face.
Each time the experts concluded that the bodily injuries sustained were minor and had not caused any short-term health problems (lengvi kūno sužalojimai, nesukėlę trumpalaikio sveikatos sutrikimo).
9.  On 14 February 2001 the applicant lodged an application with the Panevėžys City District Court to bring a private prosecution. She stated that J.H.L. had beaten her up on five occasions and gave the following detailed statement:
“I have lived with J.H.L. since 1996. Recently he started to harass and beat me.
On 3 January 2001 at around 8 p.m., I came home and found J.H.L. drunk; he was pulling up floor tiles. I complained about how he was behaving and he started to pull at my clothes. I crouched down and he then kicked me in the ribs and in the buttocks and tried to strangle me and pull my hair. When he had calmed down, I went into another room.
The next morning, on 4 January 2001 at around 9 a.m., J.H.L. stated that if I did not want to live with him any more and did not behave as he wished, he would move everything out of the apartment and would then make me pay for what I had done. He got angry when I suggested that we talk things through and he started kicking and hitting me again. He hit me a few times in various parts of my body. After that, he left home and I went to my friend G.V.’s apartment. She saw that I had been beaten up and I told her everything that had happened.
On 7 January 2001 at around 5.30 p.m., I came home and found J.H.L. drunk again. He started to reproach me for seeking medical expert attention for my injuries and told me that he wanted me to leave. He then called the police. Later, after the police officers had left the apartment without having taken any action (they asked me to come in to the police station the following day), J.H.L. got mad and pushed me out of the apartment into the stairwell and hit me in the face. Hearing a noise, B. and J., neighbours from apartments nos. 51 and 52, came out of their apartments to the landing and saw what was happening.
On 29 January 2001 at around 6.30 p.m., I came back from school and J.H.L. got mad about our relationship falling apart (I wasn’t staying at the apartment as I was trying to avoid any confrontation) and he started to beat me again: he kicked me in the face, waist, and other parts of my body and hit me in the head. When he finally stopped beating me, I went to my friend J.V.’s apartment. She lives in the same building, at apartment no. 34.
On 4 February 2001 at around 8 p.m., while I was at home, a drunken J.H.L. got mad because I had told him not to waste electricity (I pay for the electricity as the apartment is in my name, as is the contract with the electricity supplier) and hit me in the face. After that, he blocked the door to stop me from leaving. Because I was so afraid of being beaten up even more I had to flee the apartment by climbing through the window. This must have been seen (or at least heard) by an unknown girl who had been visiting J.H.L. After fleeing the apartment I ran to my neighbour R.’s apartment at no. 48, from where I called the police. My neighbour from apartment no. 47 saw that I had been beaten up. I do not know her last name.
I sought medical attention from forensic experts about the injuries, which were classed as being minor bodily injuries.”
10.  In her application to the court, the applicant alleged that the repeated acts of violence against her had constituted the offence of causing minor bodily harm under Article 116 § 3 of the Criminal Code in force at the material time (“the old Criminal Code”). She requested that the court open a criminal case against J.H.L. and that he be charged and punished under the above-mentioned provision of the Code. The applicant provided a list containing the names and addresses of five neighbours she wanted to call to the court as witnesses. She also requested the court to provide her with evidence from the Panevėžys city police about the violence she had sustained. Lastly, the applicant provided medical reports about her injuries.
11.  In May 2001 the Panevėžys city police informed the applicant that “in reply to your complaint of 9 March 2001 we inform you that in the matter of your personal disagreements with J.H.L., we suggest that you apply to the Panevėžys City District Court for proceedings to be brought by way of a private prosecution”.
12.  When questioned about her conflicts with J.H.L. on 8 May 2001, the applicant told a criminal investigator that she had lived with J.H.L. for three years in Belgium from 1996 to 1999. In 2000 she had returned to Lithuania and J.H.L. would visit her there. In 2000 she had sold him a half share of her apartment at 22-46 Statybininkų Street in Panevėžys. In early 2001, when she no longer wished to maintain her relationship with J.H.L., he had started insulting her and threatened to “rearrange her face” and injure her. The threats had continued on a regular basis. The applicant admitted to the court that she had not reported those threats to the police, but that this had been because the police officers would have told her to bring civil proceedings against J.H.L. She also made it clear that she had taken the threats seriously.
13.  On 21 January 2002 a judge of the Panevėžys City District Court forwarded the applicant’s complaint to the Panevėžys city public prosecutor, ordering him to start his own pre-trial criminal investigation so that the examination of the case would not be delayed. To explain the request for a public prosecution to be carried out, the judge noted that J.H.L. had failed to appear in court on a number of occasions.
14.  In the applicant’s reply to the Government’s observations on the admissibility and merits of the case, she provided the Court with a copy of an e-mail dated 12 June 2001 (in Dutch) sent by a certain Y.L., who appears to be the son of J.H.L., to what appears to be the applicant’s address. The e-mail reads as follows:
 “(...) I will come for you and then we will see what will happen. One thing I can tell you [is that] you can forget your life and your [boy]friend’s life, I can promise you that. Order yourself a wheelchair already. My friends and I will grab you and you will see what real bandits are like, that you have never seen in Lithuania. Father did everything for you and now look at you. Do you think we can just leave it at that? You are a rotten street whore”.
15.  On 1 February 2002 the pre-trial investigator decided to place J.H.L. under investigation on suspicion of the offence of systematically causing minor bodily harm to the applicant (Article 116 § 3 of the old Criminal Code).
16.  According to a report of 11 December 2002 produced by D.D., a police investigator, police officers had been called to the applicant and J.H.L’s apartment twice, namely on 7 January and 4 February 2001. The applicant had told the police that J.H.L. had been verbally abusive to her and had tried to throw her out of the apartment. J.H.L. had been cautioned by the police on both occasions. The investigator noted that on those two occasions the applicant had not mentioned anything about her injuries to the police. The applicant had written to the police on 15 January 2001 that J.H.L. had cursed her and had not let her into the apartment, but she had not mentioned physical injuries.
17.  In 2002 J.H.L. was charged with having deliberately and systematically injured the applicant, resulting in her having sustained minor bodily harm. The investigation was suspended and reopened numerous times because J.H.L. had failed to appear at court and had absconded. Each time the investigation was suspended, the applicant lodged an appeal.
18.  In December 2002 the police investigator D.D. deemed that there was insufficient evidence to prove that J.H.L. was responsible for having beaten the applicant. On the basis of the applicant’s appeal, the prosecutor quashed that decision on the ground that the pre-trial investigation had not been thorough enough.
19.  On 21 January 2003 the police investigator D.D. again decided to discontinue the pre-trial investigation, considering that there was no conclusive evidence that J.H.L. had perpetrated the crimes against the applicant and that that all the means to discover the truth had already been exhausted. The investigator noted that in the one-month period during which the violence had allegedly taken place, the police had only been called to the apartment twice to sort out “family quarrels”, and that in her statements to the police the applicant had not made any complaints of having been physically attacked by J.H.L. She had only complained that she had been shouted at by him and that he had refused to let her enter the apartment which they both shared as co-owners. The investigator did not rule out the possibility that the applicant had initiated the criminal investigation because there had been unresolved financial disputes between them.
The investigator’s decision was upheld by a public prosecutor on 10 February 2003.
The applicant appealed against those two decisions and on 9 February 2004 a higher prosecutor reopened the proceedings on the grounds that “the criminal investigation had not been [sufficiently] thorough”.
20.  By a decision of 17 March 2004, the Panevėžys prosecutor’s office granted the applicant’s request to remove (nušalinti) the criminal investigator D.D. from the case because of concerns as to her impartiality. The prosecutor also noted that the criminal investigation had been delayed (tyrimas buvo vilkinamas).
21.  On 10 June 2005 the prosecutor held that during the pre-trial investigation “it had been established” that the applicant had been strangled, hit and kicked on five separate occasions between January and February 2001 in the apartment situated at 22-46 Statybininkų Street in Panevėžys. As a result, she had sustained minor bodily harm. The prosecutor went on to say that “J.H.L. was suspected of having perpetrated the criminal acts in question”. Nevertheless, he decided to discontinue the pre-trial investigation on the grounds that the law had changed in 2003 and a prosecution in respect of minor bodily harm should have been brought by the victim in a private capacity. The prosecutor also considered there was no reason for a public prosecution, as the case did not fall within the ambit of Article 409 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 36 below), that is to say, the prosecutor did not consider the crime to be of “public importance”. It was therefore up to the applicant to proceed accordingly and to apply to a court to bring a private prosecution against J.H.L.
22.  The applicant appealed, arguing that she had already addressed the law-enforcement authorities about her injuries four years previously and had initiated a private prosecution at that time. However, the judge had transferred her complaint to a public prosecutor, who had initiated the pre­trial investigation. The investigation had continued after 1 May 2003, when the new Code of Criminal Procedure had entered into force. Those circumstances had led her to believe that the charges in the case were being pursued by the public prosecutor. Given that the public prosecutor had waited for two years before informing the applicant that he would not be prosecuting J.H.L., his position was difficult to understand. As far as the applicant was concerned, such a decision was in breach of the principle that criminal offences should be investigated promptly and that the perpetrator should receive a fair punishment. If the prosecutor deemed that private prosecution was the procedure which the applicant’s case should follow, then he should have informed the applicant immediately after the reform of the legislation on 1 May 2003. As a result the criminal proceedings had clearly been delayed, to the applicant’s detriment, since the guilty party had remained unpunished up until that day and the applicant had been unable to bring him to justice. Lastly, she submitted that the end of the limitation period for prosecuting J.H.L. was approaching (see paragraph 34 below).
23.  By a decision of 19 July 2005, the deputy chief prosecutor at the Panevėžys City District Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the applicant’s appeal.
24.  The applicant lodged a further appeal with the Panevėžys City District Court, again reiterating that the statutory time-limit for charging J.H.L. was approaching. If she were forced to start criminal proceedings all over again, the judgment would be delayed.
25.  On 15 September 2005 the Panevėžys City District Court upheld the prosecutor’s decision, dismissing the applicant’s appeal. The court noted that, under Article 409 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, a prosecutor had a right, but not an obligation, to initiate a pre-trial investigation. There was no information in the case file to indicate that the case was of public interest or that the victim could not protect her own rights by means of a private prosecution. The ruling was final and not amenable to appeal.
26.  On 28 September 2005 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Panevėžys City District Court, describing the five episodes of violence that had taken place between 3 January and 4 February 2001, and requesting that J.H.L. be privately prosecuted for causing minor bodily harm. She did not mention any other instances of ill-treatment, either physical or psychological.
27.  On the basis of forensic reports and the applicant’s testimony at the hearing, the Panevėžys City District Court considered that J.H.L.’s acts corresponded to the offence of causing minor bodily harm under Article 140 § 1 of the new Criminal Code. The court considered that the limitation period for the prosecution of those offences was one-year. Accordingly, by a ruling of 15 December 2005 the court refused the applicant’s request on the ground that the prosecution had become time­barred.
28.  The applicant appealed, arguing that her attacker would remain unpunished, which would breach her rights under the Convention, although she did not specify any particular provision thereof.
29.  On 4 January 2006 the Panevėžys Regional Court reinterpreted the criminal procedure rules relating to the statutory limitation periods for prosecuting specific offences, found the limitation period to be five years, and therefore upheld the applicant’s appeal.
30.  On 21 February 2006 the District Court again refused to open a pre­trial investigation on the basis of a private prosecution because the last date on which the applicant had been injured by J.H.L. was 4 February 2001, which meant that the five-year statutory limitation period for prosecution had been exceeded.
31.  The applicant appealed, emphasising that although she had lodged a criminal complaint with the courts for J.H.L.’s prosecution immediately after she had been beaten up, the criminal proceedings had been pending for years on account of mistakes and inaction on the part of the prosecutors and courts. As a result, her attacker had not been prosecuted by the public prosecutor’s office of its own motion and her attempts to pursue her criminal complaint against him had been futile.
32.  By a final ruling of 8 February 2007, the Panevėžys Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal, finding that any kind of prosecution had become time-barred. The appellate court noted that the applicant had initiated private prosecution proceedings back in 2001. In 2002 the court had transferred the case to a public prosecutor to pursue an investigation into the charges being brought against J.H.L. of his own motion. As a result of the legislative changes in 2003, it had not been possible for the public prosecutor to carry on with the investigation. The Panevėžys Regional Court also observed that on 28 September 2005 the applicant had brought proceedings by means of a private prosecution regarding the same events. However, because of the five-year limitation period, the prosecution had no longer been possible.